Nate Burleson has been on CBS Mornings since September 2021 and it has given him another platform to show off his talent and his voice in the media. It has also caused him to have a different schedule than he did when he was at Good Morning Football on NFL Network.
Burleson was a guest on the latest episode of the R2C2 Podcast with Ryan Ruocco and CC Sabathia and said he wants to be the first one to enter the building every weekday morning because more prep work has to be done on anything that can happen immediately in news.
“The news schedule, I’m waking up a little bit earlier. For Good Morning Football, I’d wake up around 4:45. Now, I wake up at 4 AM. I want to get into the city. I like to be the first one in the studio just so I can prepare for the show.
“In football, there’s this revolving door of information that we live in because we are working in the football space. But, when you are working in news, you have to be knowledgeable about everything, It could be social issues on a national level, it could be weather internationally, it could be politics one day.
“Go to sleep with one thing on your mind thinking you know what the show is going to be. Then you wake up and we are pretty much tearing up the show and starting with a new lead block because something happened overnight. Then, not to mention, we have guests.”
Burleson mentioned he wants to be prepared for anything because his biggest fear is not being knowledgeable about a news topic that is discussed and proving the doubters of him correct.
“I think what gives me the most fear is having 30 seconds and not having done my homework or not be as knowledgeable about a specific topic and then in 30 seconds, I blow it. That’s what I think about everyday. In news, I just don’t want that judgment for anybody to say ‘Gotcha, I told you he didn’t know what he was doing, I told you he doesn’t belong there.’
“It’s one of those shows where you have to be on your toes. It’s 2 hours, but there’s not a ton of time for us to just talk. This isn’t a sports show so we are not debating about anything. We’re just front-row seats to the news and then we deliver that news to the viewer.”
While on Good Morning Football, Burleson was able to talk about more than just the NFL and it allowed him to open up more of his personality to the viewer.
“As I got into TV, I realized that my voice was unique. We are all very similar in the sense that we might love a certain sport where people identify us with that sport, but we are sport junkies. I had all of these different loves. All of these different things I felt like I wanted to talk about. I couldn’t do it if I was just doing football.
“Then, I started to open up more on Good Morning Football and thank you to the NFL Network because I started showing my love for hip-hop and writing poetry and then I started talking about investing. As I started to open up myself, it seems like the world in the media space started to do the same.”
In the end, Burleson is grateful for the opportunities that Good Morning Football gave him and he told Ruocco and Sabathia that the show allowed everyone on set to be themselves and that there is more than one way to have a successful show.
“I’m thankful for that show. It was unique at first because it was just four people talking football but the more we got into it, the more the show allowed it to just be us. It’s not so straight-laced and traditional as it used to be. That isn’t taking a shot at what TV and media and radio once was, but there’s an evolution. You can do both. You can put on a suit and tie and talk hardcore X’s and O’s, but then you can also dress it down and put on a hoodie and give the same type of passion and talk about any other sport that you love.”
